Stone Shadow
Rex Miller
Copyright ©1989 by Rex Miller
Other Works by Rex Miller
Stone Shadow*
Butcher*
Chaingang*
Slob*
Frenzy
Slice
Iceman
Profane Men
*also available in e-reads editions
Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye ...
—I CORINTHIANS 15
South Dallas
“You like that?” the man asked her.
“Mmmm.” Incongruously, in the back of her mind she recognized “The Lady from Brazil” playing over his radio that he'd brought down into the basement with him. Their romantic accompaniment, she thought.
“Answer,” he commanded.
“Yes.” Tania Maria is the artist's name, she thought, fighting to keep herself in check.
“Don't talk so forcefully. You know I don't go for that.” He hurt her a little to emphasize his words.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered.
“Now. Try it again. There. You like that—huh?"
“Yeah."
“Okay. You've already forgotten what I just told you two seconds ago. You ain't the smartest cookie ever drew a breath, are you? Eh?"
“No."
“No WHAT?"
“No, I'm not the smartest cookie that ever drew a breath."
“What a fuckin’ GENIUS.” He laughed. “I LOVE it. Damn. Okay. Now. When I ask-you-if-you-like-it"—he squeezed her breasts roughly, his arms coming around her from behind, reaching under her arms and cupping her large breasts, kneading them in tempo as he spoke, turning himself on at her helplessness—"I want you to tell me. I want you to say, ‘YES, I like it. I like for you to squeeze my big, juicy melons.’ You think you can remember that?"
“Yes."
“Say it"—he squeezed hard, hurting her this time—"goddamn you."
“I like it. I like for you to squeeze my big, juicy melons."
“Like this?"
“Ahh,” she cried out in pain as he squeezed her breast, crying out more than the degree of pain called for, knowing how he got off on it, and then making a little whimpering, keening noise that he liked.
“Yeah,” he said hoarsely, “you go for that, don't you? Oh, yes.” He was touching her now.
She fought to keep herself on course. She tried to whimper convincingly and not recoil from the unwanted intimacy of his hand.
“You're so wet. Damn. You want to beg for some of ole Sly?"
“Yes. Please. I beg you give me some of old Sly."
“Uh huh. A nice soft whispery voice. That's the way I like for you to beg for it.” He was touching her roughly below. The first two fingers of his right hand going in and out, plumbing her over and over, in and out, and then his hand was out of her and she could feel him doing something.
“Now,” he said, “let's beg for him nice."
“Come on, Sly, please. I beg for you. Please. I want you so bad.” She fought to keep the hatred and ice out of her voice.
“Ole Sly gonna make you sit up and beg."
“Oh,” she said as he thrust his erection in.
“That's what I like about fuckin’ you doggie-style, bitch, I don't have to even guide ole Sly in. He just sorta fits in there himself, don't he?"
“Yes. He feels so good,” she lied as he banged up against her.
“Yeah. I know, baby.” He cupped her left breast, his right hand on her right hip as he drilled her. Her breast was getting sore from his squeezing. It had been a nightmare. She'd been his captive for over three weeks now. He'd abducted her in a Dallas shopping center. In broad daylight, he'd said later, and you were the broad. He was some joker.
“Oh,” she let out an audible moan of simulated ecstasy. In the weeks of captivity she'd learned survival skills. She'd even had a menstrual period while she was chained up, and he'd whipped her for it and made her take him in her mouth until she gagged. Forcing her to give him head for hours.
Her name was Donna. Reasonably attractive, longhaired, neatly groomed, outgoing, poised under normal circumstances. She imagined what she must look like now, cowering in dazed fear and semishock, chained to a basement wall by a mad rapist and murderer, waiting for his pleasure in the cellar room of a dark house. Hair like a rat's nest hanging down in her face.
“Ohhhh,” she moaned, and he said, “That's right, cunt. Sly's a big boy, isn't he?"
“Oh, yes. Sly, you're so big and hard. You feel so good inside me."
For the first couple of weeks she'd slept only three or four hours a night. Losing all sense of the passage of days and nights. Sometimes he left the light on all night. Sometimes he turned it off and kept it dark during the daylight hours, she knew, purposely disorienting and confusing her.
“Beg for him."
“Yes. Please. I beg you, don't stop. It feels so good.” She tried to move a little off the rhythm, trying to subtly spoil his deep strokes, but she had to do it with the greatest care. If he suspected anything, her plan wouldn't work, and he was very cunning. It was now or never.
“Oh,” she moaned again. “I ... Ohhhh.... I want it so bad. I could do this so good if I didn't have a chain like this. Please. Ohhhh. Please. I want you to fuck me so deep. Please unchain me.” She made her voice as sexy and ingratiating as she could.
“Ole Sly done got you hot to trot."
“Yes, baby. So hot. So hot and wet. I want to be such a good slave to you."
“Yeah. I can dig it.” He was really banging into her now. “Yeah. We can take that heavy chain off our little bitch. Let her do her thing. After all, you can't go nowhere."
That's what you think you bastard, she thought to herself as she moaned in mock, orgasmic delight.
He had kidnapped her at gunpoint, this joker. Plucked her from the safety of her car. Raping her repeatedly. Keeping her in a thick leather belt to which a heavy chain had been padlocked. This was what he was unlocking now, the hated thing that kept her tethered to the wall.
She felt weak. Light-headed. Sore. She was nude. He'd kept her that way all the time. With only a blanket pulled around her—"so you won't catch cold and die, bitch,” he'd said. He fed her by whim. Watered her enough to keep her going. Sex was rough. Perverted. Animalistic.
But it wasn't the sex or his brutality that had terrorized her to the breaking point. It was his wild bragging about the bodies he'd buried. “Hundreds of bodies.” And she knew that it wasn't all hot air. He told her too many specific details of burials. And he'd shown her proud clippings of his kills. Dozens of newspaper stories detailing a recent rash of mysterious disappearances in the Southwest. He had lots of the stories thumbtacked to the walls of the basement room, interspersed with his favorite pages from raunchy skin mags.
The fact that he would tell her such explicit details frightened her deeply. He continually promised that he'd let her live if she'd do what he demanded of her, but instinct told her otherwise. She knew that all of his bragging would eventually have a price. If she was going to survive this ordeal, she would have to get away somehow, and it would have to be soon.
She was very tired and weak. A lethargy had set in after the first couple of weeks and she'd gone from sleeping a few hours a night to sleeping constantly. She would retreat from the horrors of her imprisonment and abuse the moment he would finish with her, pulling back into a curl and instantly letting herself slip into the dark womb of sleep. When she'd be awakened, she'd still be in that same fetal ball, the blanket tucked around her, barely able to move.